Compensating the victims of terrorism

Youssef Sidhom

01 Nov 2013 2:10 pm

Problems on hold

Last September Watani launched a donation fund to compensate the Coptic victims for the losses they incurred owing to the horrendous pro-Mursi Islamist attacks against them. The Islamists were penalising the Copts,

and all Egypt, for their participation in the 30 June Revolution which brought about the downfall of Mursi and his Islamist regime.

On a full page in its 22 September issue, Watani printed a list of names of the Coptic victims, who belonged to 10 of Egypt’s governorates, and the details of their losses—whether in lives, personal injury, or material losses. We did not include the damage to the churches, since the armed forces had announced they would shoulder the reconstruction, restoration and renovation of the damaged or burnt churches or church-owned facilities such as schools, orphanages, or community centres.

The first list, as Watani explained at the time, included no data about the financial estimate of the losses, neither the sums needed to enable families to restart their livelihoods nor to help those families who had lost a breadwinner. We promised our readers to print this information which a Watani team was working to compile as soon as it was ready.

Today we print an estimate of the financial compensation needed to cover the damages and loss in property. The cases of the families who lost their breadwinners—two in Alexandria and three in North Sinai—are still being assessed to determine the compensation needed. The cases of forced displacement in North Sinai, which included 30 families, are also being investigated.

Following is the estimate of the sums needed to compensate victims for their material losses, listed according to each of the 10 governorates. The sums are in Egyptian Pounds.

I admit the huge estimate astounded me. But it rightly expresses the hideousness of the intentional, pre-planned terrorist assault against the Copts, intended to wreak the worst harm possible on their property and livelihoods. The losses of Minya Copts alone amount to 65.42 per cent of the total, and involves Minya villages and towns as follows—the sums in EGP:

The donation fund launched by Watani is still open for donations. While the fund swells to reach the targeted sum, the Watani team in charge of the fund will work to identify the urgent cases that cannot wait for the fund to reach its limit. The team will also locate the families that have already received compensation from other bodies, in order to focus on those victims who have as yet received no aid whatsoever.

In accordance with Watani’s policy of transparency and commitment to our readers, we will promptly print accounts of all incoming and outgoing sums.